The present invention relates to a portable radio information terminal apparatus and a screen operating method for use therewith. More particularly, the invention relates to a portable radio information terminal apparatus implemented as a pager and a screen operating method for use therewith, the pager receiving message information that is displayed and scrolled on a screen by that method.
There exist portable radio information terminal apparatuses each serving as a terminal apparatus of a communication network. They have been commercialized with diverse structures and functions that meet today's varied and rapidly expanding demands in the field of telecommunications.
One typical portable radio information terminal apparatus that has gained widespread use is the so-called pager for receiving radio signals. In its infancy, the pager was a terminal that beeped upon receipt of a call signal from a radio station. Typically, a user carrying such a pager would be in a location away from wired telephones. On receiving a radio call signal issued by someone via a radio station, the pager alerted the user to call back from the nearest wired telephone.
Then came a new generation of pagers capable of receiving not only simple call signals but also signals containing informations via radio stations. The type of pager used extensively today is one which, upon receipt of a message-carrying signal, decodes the signal and places decoded message information and related data into a memory while simultaneously displaying the received message on a liquid crystal display panel.
The above type of pager decodes messages from the incoming signals and organizes the decoded messages into suitable message files. These messages are stored in a message memory as organized in such message files.
On a single screen of a built-in liquid crystal display panel, a message body is displayed illustratively in four lines of 20 characters each. If the message body has more than four lines, the user may perform necessary input operations to scroll the screen to view the entire message successively.
With an expanding scope of applications for the above type of portable radio information terminal apparatus have come varieties of messages that may be received by the terminal. For example, the messages received from individuals which are the most prevalent kind of messages have been supplemented by growing volumes of message information originating from businesses and organizations offering message information services.
These different kinds of received information may be classified by message format. For example, bodies of messages from individuals are mostly composed of character symbols. On the other hand, message information from information service businesses may be made up not only of character symbols but also of dot-pattern-based graphics.
Given such diversity of received messages, it is preferable that a unit amount of screen scroll, i.e., the unit extent of screen space in which the screen is scrolled by each scroll operation, is varied depending on the format of each received message. Most conventional portable radio information terminal apparatuses, however, have only offered a screen scrolling function that scrolls the screen by one character line every time a screen scrolling operation is carried out.
Consequently, although the line-by-line scrolling feature is advantageous in scrolling graphic images such as maps and weather patterns, users of the prior-art terminal apparatuses have had to perform many scrolling operations in a limited time when reading certain types of messages. Such messages include the one whose body is composed of numerous lines that must be read successively and rapidly by the user, and the one that needs to be fast forwarded so that a latter part of it will be displayed quickly for preferential reading.
The conventional apparatuses have thus suffered from poor operability; the repeated operations are tiresome for users and are prone to errors. In addition, the message read-out process by users has tended to be a time-consuming chore.